Of Energy Lost Then Found
Seattlest has a penchant for double-booking shows. Sometimes it's planned, but more often than not there's an "Oh shit" moment where we have to determine how to be in two places at once, and how best to disperse our energy over the evening. Friday was one such night (yup, we're behind in our posting), but Seattlest lucked out with the shows of interest being split over the rock and dance worlds, which thankfully run on different schedules. This night's bill included The Thermals and Cursive at Neumos, followed by MSTRKRFT at Chop Suey, which ended up working nicely as a pair of shows, with Seattle's show-stasis at a peak during the former, non-existent during the latter.
Seattlest was shocked at the response to The Thermals after heading into Neumos. While the band did that thing they do so well (rock out), the Neumos crowd just stood and stared at them. Now, it'd have been one thing if The Thermals were lacking in their performance, but there was no excuse for Seattle's unresponsiveness. From where we stood we could only see a handful of people looking even moderately interested. Even the band picked up on the disinterest, commenting "Well at least you're doing something" in response to a fight that broke out in the middle of the crowd. We really don't know what happened there, but Seattle, we've got a problem when even the all-ages shows aren't fun anymore.
More on the the effects of Seattle's stasis epidemic and the apparent cure after the jump.
We were thinking originally that the reason the audience wasn't into The Thermals was because they were too busy saving their energy for Cursive. Well, that theory didn't quite pan out, as for most of Cursive's set the crowd stood around like it was chamber music. Very disappointing on the whole. There were exceptions, and we give props to the Amazon girl who serenaded her friends in the corner, the guy in gloves who almost emoted himself off the balcony, and the guy we noted as the "Asian firecracker," who didn't bounce so much as percolate in place, every lyric exploding from his core (We also took note of a likely successor to the "black guy at the punk show" title.). That spectacular few (and a small cadre of others who sang along) provided most of the entertainment for the night, while the rest of the crowd was the embodiment of "eh." An observed text message from one of the not-quite excited read, "It's OK. I've seen 'em better. Sold out. All ages though. They look fuckin' rough." Mere moments after that text was sent the enthusiasm picked up, with a crowd surfer ending up on stage and people actually waking from their stupor, but it was too late to redeem the show. We don't blame the bands, we blame you Seattle (and ourselves, since we weren't really helping the cause).
It turns out the energetic were down the street at MSTRKRFT. More than a few had written off this show as some sort of "hipster bullshit," but MSTRKRFT (pronounced MasterCraft) provided the boost that everyone at Neumos needed. Far from being some irony-filled wank-fest, the duo played Daft-Punk-y electro-house all night, finding variety even within those relatively strict genre confines. The crowd, a mix of hipsters and househeads, ate it all up, giving Seattlest a needed jolt to kick the evening up a few notches. Occasionally a member of MSTRKRFT would duck down below their table, leaving only rising plumes of smoke as evidence of their presence, before rising to face the crowd, smiling through squinted eyes. The crowd smiled back, dancing the night away in complete defiance of the apathyfest of that had gone down just a few blocks away.
Images from flickr users moomoocow (Cursive) and listsanddiagrams (MSTRKRFT)
